Menomonee River
Regular price $450.00Original painting, oil on panel, frame by the artist.
8" H x 10" W, 14" H x 16" W framed
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
Light has been the protagonist of painting since artists first put pigment to substrate. It’s the foundation of imagery, whether symbolic or literal, imagined or authentic. I carry on that tradition through observational, representational painting. Light informs so many things—more accurately, everything—we see. Fixating on light allows me to describe form in color temperature, value, saturation, and hue in a way that gives the viewer a sense of place. That’s the underlying goal. To communicate the feeling of a space with which the viewer’s connection is undeniable. The rich hues and luminous qualities that oils provide have been an inevitable, if joyful vehicle for me to express what I see.
BIOGRAPHY
Marc was born and raised in Wisconsin in the Rockwellian town of Wild Rose.
After graduating high school second in his class, he packed up his brushes and attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout, majoring in industrial design. After two years Marc switched majors to focus on illustration. Working largely in pen & ink and watercolor, he found an interest in political, satirical illustration and editorial cartooning. Marc continued on this career path for several years until, almost by accident, he discovered plein air painting. Although he loved the comfort and convenience of his studio, nothing could compete with this newfound passion. Politics was quickly replaced with depictions of the Wisconsin Landscape.
Marc continues to broaden his scope of painting techniques and subject matter and participates in plein air events and art shows across the country.
Mississippi Jetty
Regular price $550.00Original oil painting painted en plein air along the 'ole man.
canvas board in wooden frame, overall 16" W x 14" H
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
As painter my goal is simply to represent on canvas how I see the world. I'm fascinated with the shapes and rhythms of nature. I conceive of my paintings as a collection of interesting shapes that fit together, and with a little luck the end result can convey something of the sublime. I've worked directly from my subjects or “plein air” for 16 years, and strive for the work to express an empathy for the unique qualities of a landscape as simply as possible.
Devils Punchbowl
Regular price $1,200.00Original painting, oil on panel, frame by the artist.
20" H x 16" W, 27" H x 23" W framed
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
Light has been the protagonist of painting since artists first put pigment to substrate. It’s the foundation of imagery, whether symbolic or literal, imagined or authentic. I carry on that tradition through observational, representational painting. Light informs so many things—more accurately, everything—we see. Fixating on light allows me to describe form in color temperature, value, saturation, and hue in a way that gives the viewer a sense of place. That’s the underlying goal. To communicate the feeling of a space with which the viewer’s connection is undeniable. The rich hues and luminous qualities that oils provide have been an inevitable, if joyful vehicle for me to express what I see.
BIOGRAPHY
Marc was born and raised in Wisconsin in the Rockwellian town of Wild Rose.
After graduating high school second in his class, he packed up his brushes and attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout, majoring in industrial design. After two years Marc switched majors to focus on illustration. Working largely in pen & ink and watercolor, he found an interest in political, satirical illustration and editorial cartooning. Marc continued on this career path for several years until, almost by accident, he discovered plein air painting. Although he loved the comfort and convenience of his studio, nothing could compete with this newfound passion. Politics was quickly replaced with depictions of the Wisconsin Landscape.
Marc continues to broaden his scope of painting techniques and subject matter and participates in plein air events and art shows across the country.
Fox River Idyll
Regular price $1,250.00Oil on canvas board.
30" W x 24" H, 38" W x 32.5" H framed
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
I have found that while doing a painting outdoors I am immersed in the moment. What I mean is that later when I look at the painting I can remember all the things that went on as I painted, the weather, the birds singing, a small animal moving through the scene, people who have stopped to talk to me. The memories are all part of the painting.
Waterfall
Regular price $1,800.00Original oil on canvas, both orientations shown.
40” H x 30” W
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
The longer the viewer takes to concentrate and “study” any form of fine art the greater the possibility they have to enjoy it, or decide why they don’t. The average viewing time is fifteen seconds. I am challenging that notion to allow submission to the emotional experience.
My work is an accomplished effort of juggling composition and improvisation. The construction of these two elements take shape in a semi-trance. After this absorption, three-quarters of the way through this process, the critical phase occurs when I must make the whole piece come together. Of course it’s not a “process” in the corporate sense of the word – it is everything that has stayed with me from being a student with Elaine de Kooning to thirty years of working and exhibiting in NYC.
I must use whatever facility comes to play during this circumspect analyses in an attempt to finish with a positive ending. This final personal satisfaction is achieved with a certain amount of luck along with my years of experience towards completion.
My approach to the current work relies on critical analysis and a reservoir of acquired techniques and subject matter. The new element to my work shown here is collage. A palette of appropriated images from vintage periodicals and posters. I use the cut line of the X-acto blade much like a pencil or paintbrush. Choosing the collage pieces, placing them, shaping; gluing and burnishing. This process is very intuitive while simultaneously reflecting on the compositional direction allowing for changes. I paint over the cut pieces with a variety of techniques. The stipple dry brush application of paint is based on a technique I have used previously in my work to suggest the painterly approach.
The titles are conceptually cryptic leaving the final response and analysis up to the viewer. “Competition for the largest” and “Butterfly” are examples of my earlier stylistic approach. They are graphic, with high contrast. “Christian Harley Riders in favor of Gay and Lesbian Marriage” might be transitional – busy but composed.
What I am striving for in “Surf City is the Place to be” is a combination of seamless blending of the figurative and abstract. “Rolanda and the Kitchen Sink in Hawaii” is dedicated to a good friend who immigrated to Hawaii. It expresses a more painterly tone with a sense of color, bright light and the thrill of being in a new place. “Butterfly” is an expression of life on over load with a geometric abstraction, and kinetic movement. Delicate creatures that can travel hundreds of miles every year to be where they need to be, and return every year to another place called home.
BIOGRAPHYBarke, who spent the last 20 years in New York City, exhibiting his art, is now back in Milwaukee. The culture and urbanity of “The City” provided a context that fostered five single person shows and several reviews in Art Forum and Art in America, as well as awards including The National Endowment for the Arts Scholarship and the New York Foundations for the Arts Fellowship in drawing.
Before working full time as an artist in New York, Rande taught art for 6 years. First at the University of Southern Mississippi, then as an assistant professor in the Art department of Syracuse University. His formal education was at the University of Georgia with an MFA in drawing and painting. There, he worked for two years with Elaine de Kooning who enabled him to meet such masters of 1950’s American abstraction as Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston. Willem de Kooning reminded Rande of his German speaking grandfather, Sam Barke, who left Europe to start a cedar post business in Gillett, Wisconsin in the 1930’s.
Rande left New York City in 2002, changed forever, after watching the Trade Center towers burn from his Greenpoint Brooklyn studio. He and wife moved to Westchester County setting up a studio in downtown Yonkers, 2 blocks from the Hudson River and the Palisades. The river and surrounding imagery was reflected in his abstract paintings and semi representational drawings.The great recession would take Rande and his wife to the midwest. Rande now lives and works in Milwaukee - the city he left at age 16.
Lady in Waiting
Regular price $1,800.00Original painting, oil on panel, frame by the artist.
24" H x 24" W, 31" H x 31" W framed
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
Light has been the protagonist of painting since artists first put pigment to substrate. It’s the foundation of imagery, whether symbolic or literal, imagined or authentic. I carry on that tradition through observational, representational painting. Light informs so many things—more accurately, everything—we see. Fixating on light allows me to describe form in color temperature, value, saturation, and hue in a way that gives the viewer a sense of place. That’s the underlying goal. To communicate the feeling of a space with which the viewer’s connection is undeniable. The rich hues and luminous qualities that oils provide have been an inevitable, if joyful vehicle for me to express what I see.
BIOGRAPHY
Marc was born and raised in Wisconsin in the Rockwellian town of Wild Rose.
After graduating high school second in his class, he packed up his brushes and attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout, majoring in industrial design. After two years Marc switched majors to focus on illustration. Working largely in pen & ink and watercolor, he found an interest in political, satirical illustration and editorial cartooning. Marc continued on this career path for several years until, almost by accident, he discovered plein air painting. Although he loved the comfort and convenience of his studio, nothing could compete with this newfound passion. Politics was quickly replaced with depictions of the Wisconsin Landscape.
Marc continues to broaden his scope of painting techniques and subject matter and participates in plein air events and art shows across the country.
Harley Museum
Regular price $2,400.00Oil on canvas.
26.5" H x 30.5" W framed
Ships within 3 days.
STATEMENT
I have found that while doing a painting outdoors I am immersed in the moment. What I mean is that later when I look at the painting I can remember all the things that went on as I painted, the weather, the birds singing, a small animal moving through the scene, people who have stopped to talk to me. The memories are all part of the painting.
Whistle Down the Wind
Regular price $6,500.00Original oil on canvas painting
60" W x 72" H
Available now.
STATEMENT
I grew up in a house of optical phenomena. My father was a physicist with a specialty in optics (although neighbors claimed he worked at the Optical Department at Sears). Lasers, lenses, prisms, and holographs were plentiful; as were lessons on the natural world. In our house, a solar eclipse became a graduate level seminar. On long car trips, we passed the time with questions to stump Dad: Why was the sky orange, what caused hail, and how were tunnels built under the bay? (Incidentally, we refer to these questions now as "Tunnel Talk" questions).
BIOGRAPHY
I begin my paintings with questions like those of "Tunnel Talk" times. What is the color of amber, iron-ore, pollen? How can wind and water be suggested? The paintings gradually grow in layers. In the strata of paint, the shape of a microscopic protein hovers beneath a planet's elliptical orbit and decorative ironwork cancels out dense foliage. It is these strange alliances between the common and uncommon, natural and synthetic that I find compelling to paint. The compressions, connections, and contradictions of the layers shape the personality of the painting.
This knotted, painted combination forces a continual shift of attention among the many levels. I compare this to a single moment in landscape and the competing levels of activity. When I stand on Devonian limestone on the levee of the Mississippi, the barges and riverboats pass, herons fly, behind, a train noisily rumbles and streetlights flicker on, the smell of diesel fuel drifts in while rain clouds build. It's the density of experience that continues to raise questions and excite me as a painter.
Education
INDIANA UNIVERSITY, Bloomington, IN., M.F.A. - Painting, 1988
TYLER SCHOOL OF ART, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA., B.F.A, Painting,1984
Professional Experience
ST. AMBROSE UNIVERSITY, Davenport, Iowa, Professor, 1989-present UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, El Paso, Texas, Visiting Professor, 1988-1989
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